Broken
by Rurouni KJS
Summary: A short Taki fanfic directly preceding the original Soul Calibur game. Rated PG-13 for violence and supernatural themes. In this final chapter, Taki must stop her strongest foe yet from pursuing the cursed sword. Author's notes next -- ask questions now!
1. Default Chapter

BROKEN, part one: Ghost  
  
-----------  
  
Inside the Hoko Temple, the poltergeist Gel-o-Fury's power raged against Taki like a hot western wind. The lithe ninja narrowed her eyes in concentration on her powers as she attempted to contain the spirit once more.  
  
[How powerful it's become!] she marveled inwardly. She recalled having had a bit more trouble than usual stuffing the raging ghost into that little sealing shrine in the bamboo forest a little more than a year ago. But she'd won in the end, breaking the ghost's will in increments like a bound roll of twigs, until she'd defeated it.   
  
Now it was back with a vengeance, powerful enough to register easily on her sixth sense from miles away. Although she was nuke-nin and thus marked for death by her own Fu-Ma clan, she was still drawn to this shrine, which Gel-O-Fury had made its new haunting grounds.  
  
"Demon!" Taki cried, her voice ringing through the cavernous temple. "Your reign ends here! You must return to the outer world and interfere no more with the world of men!"  
  
The sensation like a hot wind intensified with a howl like disembodied laughter. The next instant, a violent spasm wracked her body and her skin suddenly grew goosebumped from an unearthly chill.   
  
[It's--it's actually trying to possess me!] she realized. She shut her eyes and cried out with a calculated, piercing scream.  
  
"KiiAIIIIIIIIII!"  
  
Both the wind and the chill immediately vanished. Taki breathed heavily with surprise at the close call.  
  
[No ghost has ever tried to possess me, not since before I was twenty,] she thought, feverishly attempting to analyze what had just happened. [No ghost should have that kind of power over me. Not with my reforged armor, or after what I did to this ghost only a few years ago!]  
  
Her left hand strayed toward the hilt of Mekki-maru, the small ninjatou strapped at her waist. Without even touching it, she could feel it throbbing with fell power.  
  
[It's Soul Edge,] Taki realized. [It has to be. Gel-O-Fury is drawing power from the remaining blade of Cervantes!]  
  
[And possibly from my own,] she considered immediately after. But that could not be helped; once drawn, the cursed Mekki-maru blade might well prove impossible to control, even for her. And she could not remove it, lest Gel-O-fury become free to draw even more of its power.  
  
[Fortunately, I still have Rekkimaru. And its strength should be enough.] She reached behind her head to grip the ninjatou hilt. Rekkimaru, her original blade, was slightly longer than Mekkimaru and contained a handguard at the hilt that the other blade lacked. But that was not the only difference between the two. Wielding Rekkimaru was easy and natural for Taki, like an extension of her own arm. Through it, she could sense every vibration of both physical sound and echoes from the unseen world of spirits. Ghosts and demons which could manipulate all sorts of matter had no power over Rekkimaru, and even those immaterial spirits could feel its blade, thanks to the special charms bound to it by its mistress.  
  
Taki inched Rekkimaru slightly from its scabbard. The blade began to resonate. Taki sensed that her repulsion of Gel-O-Fury's possession attempt had cost the ghost more strength than it realized. The time to attack was now!  
  
She moved immediately into performing her Sealing spell. Waved her left hand twice in the required manner. Focused her concentration to apply the Seal, then thrust forward her left palm in a burst of power even visible to the naked eye. Gel-O-Fury recoiled, then froze in position. Taki held her palm outstretched, holding the ghost still through her force of will. And gradually, she began to see it take visible form.  
  
Gel-O-Fury was much the same as she remembered from three years past; dressed in the ghostly black armor of some long-dead warlord, with a fanged, glowing blue face set with eyes lit by some unholy fire. It brandished a sword that shone with a pale light. What was new and unfamiliar were the sickly-looking tendrils of white energy wriggling into the ghost's faux skin and armor.  
  
[And all of them are coming from the west,] Taki noted, even as she drew Rekkimaru in preparation for attack. She held the blade high over her head and twirled it almost like a baton. A scarlet glow grew about the sword. Gel-O-Fury's orange eyes widened with fear and foreknowledge, and it managed to wrench itself free of Taki's will now that her concentration was focused on attack rather than binding.  
  
With a sudden, smooth, sweeping motion, Taki slashed Rekkimaru from low to high with a cut intended to split the ghostly man from crotch to crown.   
  
And missed the dodging Gel-O-Fury completely.  
  
The ghost roared in relief and triumph, already waving its hand to return the favor. It would bind the momentarily defenseless Taki with its poltergeistic powers and then shatter her mystical armor into dust this time before taking her completely, body and soul. To own a woman as delicious as this one would be reward in itself; that she was the hated DemonSlayer was more than any creature of darkness might even hope to gain. Combined with this new power flowing from the West, all of Japan might well be plunged into a new reign of bloody terror, with Gel-O-Fury at its head to drink it all in...  
  
But Taki's moment of vulnerability passed as the ninja spun around and immediately began to cast her final magic. Gel-O-Fury now realized, too late, that her attack had been intended to temporarily cut off the power from the West, reducing the ghost to what it had been -- a broken, wicked spirit, sealed away from interfering with the physical world. A spirit that was about to be bound once more.  
  
Taki felt the hot wind sensation of the ghost's defiant wail again, but it was a mild breeze next to its earlier power. She performed the final incantations, and even that manifestation of Gel-O-Fury ceased. Taki assumed her ready stance, right hand on Rekkimaru, and inched it from its sheath as before.  
  
No vibration, no resonance. Even Mekkimaru was relatively still. Taki allowed herself to relax.   
  
"Fuuma kanryo," she said, invoking her customary post-sealing declaration. "The deed is done."  
  
Taki was so winded from the effort of completing the binding that she almost missed the shuriken flying for her head. But she spun and intercepted the missile with Rekki-maru.   
  
"Who's there?" she cried. For a moment, there was no reply, and her combat-worn senses could not quite discern the location of the sniper. Then, from the shadows behind the massive Buddha statue came a peculiar clapping sound and a chuckle.  
  
------ Next: Clan 


	2. Clan

BROKEN, part two: Clan  
  
----------  
  
"Excellent reflexes as always, my sleek nuke-nin," came a gruff voice, male and baritone. "No wonder Master Toki holds you in such high esteem."  
  
"Show yourself, Geki," Taki said; there was no mistaking the voice.  
  
Geki stepped enough into the light so that Taki could see his face and upper torso but no more. He frowned in mock sorrow.  
  
"I was going to give you three guesses, but you ruined even that little game." He paused theatrically. "There's nowhere to run, nuke-nin. The temple is surrounded by my team and bound by our magicks. You cannot escape. Hand it over."  
  
[He means Mekkimaru, of course,] she thought before replying. "That, I cannot do. Toki-sama covets what he cannot understand or control. This blade is too powerful and dangerous to be used." She paused before continuing, peering into the opaque shadows that still obscured his body below the shoulders. "You, of all people, should understand this better than anyone. The blade took your arm."  
  
Geki did not immediately respond, but his eyes glinted with hatred.   
  
"Yes, your trap was all too efficient, nuke-nin," he said at last. "Your magic was stronger than we were led to believe."  
  
Taki was almost dumbfounded. Did he actually believe she had booby-trapped Mekki-maru to destroy whoever drew it?   
  
[This blade truly blinds the lustful to its true nature,]she thought. [It is no different from Soul Edge.] Now, more than ever, she was determined to seek out that other evil blade and deal with it once and for all. Perhaps if she pit Mekkimaru against Soul Edge, the two weapons would destroy each other, or at least weaken the other enough for her and Rekkimaru to finish it off. But first she had to survive this challenge.  
  
With sudden swiftness, Geki leapt from his perch on the statue in a high, arcing flip to land perfectly a scant three meters from Taki. Now, fully revealed in the torchlight, Taki could see that his destroyed hand and forearm had been replaced by a finely forged and long ninjatou. In his good left hand, the tall ninja twirled a weighted chain.  
  
"For my service in taking your foul assassination attempt upon his life, Master Toki of the Fu-Ma clan has given me the gifts and permission to destroy you. Prepare yourself for death, nuke-nin!" Geki hurled the chain with such speed that Taki felt the wind displaced by the weighted end on her cheek as it narrowly missed her head. Almost simultaneously he yanked the chain back at an angle, and Taki felt a painful crack almost squarely on the back of her skull. She bent forward in pain, fighting the urge to black out.   
  
Geki gave no quarter. Rushing forward, he stabbed his swordarm directly for her heart. But he missed completely as Taki shifted her forward crumple into a sideways roll to his left. She continued the roll, hoping he would try to press his apparent advantage. But as she stood up from the roll, intending to slash his exposed flank, she instead had to flip away from his chain, which he was hurling from midair, having leapt and twisted to avoid her attack.   
  
She landed and spun, ready for his next move, but he did not continue his attack, instead hauling his chain back to a ready position. Taki warily began to circle to Geki's left, which she surmised would be his weak side. But his skill with the chain was considerable, even with only one hand to wield it. And his strange stance -- right foot and sword arm forward -- troubled her. It was not of the Mussou Battou style that the Fu-Ma clan favored. She did not know what new techniques he had developed with this new weaponry. She was in completely new territory, where he held all the advantages; he knew her moves, and she suddenly knew none of his.  
  
If Geki knew how strong his hand was, he let no bravado show. As Taki attempted to circle to his left, he carefully stepped left as well to cover the weak side. Seeing his weakness, Taki began to close the distance, cautiously. She hoped to take him by surprise with a quick Assassin Strike from his slight left before he could bring his sword arm to bear--  
  
Taki heard the whistle of the chain just in time to duck the arcing weight, which snagged and plucked a few stray hairs from her ponytail. She now saw that the defense of his left flank was only a feint to draw her in for the chain attack. As he continued to whirl the chain in a meter-wide arc, he began to press his attack with his sword arm.   
  
Using a most unorthodox style that Taki had only seen once while traveling Europe, Geki attacked with a series of jabs and thrusts that Taki found surprisingly difficult to defend against. When his blade made contact with hers or her wrist armor, he would slide his blade past her guard, forcing her to open her guard to redirect the blade from wounding her. Or he would disengage and draw back the sword immediately once she committed to a blocking maneuver. And because of the unique nature of his weapon, his counterattack speed was as fast as her own. She often considered Rekkimaru an extension of herself; but for Geki and his swordarm it was literally true, to her disadvantage.  
  
He also had a tremendous advantage in reach, and on top of all else, the whirling chain continually threatened to deal her a staggering blow which could easily open her up to a fatal sword stroke. Taki was forced entirely on the defensive, and yet was growing bloodied as Geki's thrusts began to strike skin and flesh.  
  
Suddenly, Taki felt a draft at her back and realized Geki had driven her to the edge of the temple platform. His right arm closed off escape to her left and the chain covered her right. She was trapped, unless...  
  
Throwing aside caution, Taki feinted low, then flipped high above Geki's head when he succumbed to the fake and stabbed low. She landed heavily; the fatigue of this desperate battle, following on the heels of the binding of Gel-O-Fury, and the combined shock of a half-dozen light wounds were taking their toll.   
  
This instant of weariness was all Geki needed. With awesome speed and almost without looking, he spun the chain back in an arc. Taki could only rear back and throw her blade arm up to block the blow from the chain-weight. The end whipped around her lightly armored right wrist, entangling it, and the weight struck the side of her unarmored hand with bone-jarring pain. Rekki-maru fell noisily to the temple floor.  
  
Before she could reach it with her free hand, Geki yanked her forward and away from her fallen blade and within five feet of him. The chain was beginning to slide from her wrist armor, but not fast enough; with one sudden right step forward Geki put his swordarm in range for a killing blow, which followed the step in a single motion.  
  
------- Next: Blade 


	3. Blade

--------------------BROKEN, part three: Blade--------------  
  
Without thinking, Taki drew Mekki-maru in an explosion of flame and unholy noise. A raw sensation, like sandpaper scouring her veins, coursed through her left arm as she twisted to avoid Geki's sword strike. For a moment she was afraid her hand would explode like Geki's had, and she almost dropped the blade while in midair -- and only now did she note that she was in midair, having cleanly avoided Geki's attack. She gripped the blade more tightly, instinctively knowing that to loosen her grip would be to share Geki's fate. Meanwhile, she -- Mekki-maru -- sliced through the chain binding her as if it were soft tofu. As she watched, from the corner of her eye, Geki stumble backward from the sudden loss of balance, she felt her mind go aflame with nearly a dozen countermoves to finish him off, if she would only hold on tightly to Mekki-maru and wield the blade by yielding to the blade and being wielded by the blade--  
  
Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, Taki focused her will into resheathing Mekki-maru, then released her grip. The lightning and flames coursing through her body and mind ceased immediately, leaving a dull pain like the smell of ozone. Geki stood a good eight meters away, his face a mask of stunned horror. Taki dazedly glanced as her feet and saw Rekkimaru only half a meter away.   
  
"So now you show your true colors, witch!" Geki snarled with bald hatred. "You mean to master the power of the blade for yourself!" He threw down the ruined chain and drew a short ninjatou from a belt sheath. He began to quickly advance upon Taki, which spurred her from her stupor. She knelt down and recovered Rekkimaru in time to block his first strike.   
  
Geki, still using the strange style, now wielded two blades and almost immediately began to overwhelm Taki again. But her free hand found Mekkimaru again, and drew in a high arc of fire and evil aura. Geki cried out and drew back, dropping his short blade and gripping his forehead. Where Mekkimaru had struck, there was a neat, 4-centimeter cut across his forehead, which bled heavily almost immediately.   
  
The cut is shallow, Taki realized instantly. Only cut a little into the bone. But she was stunned at the speed and ease of the move, and its ruthlessness.   
  
She did not wish to kill Geki if she could avoid it. Like Master Toki, the only father figure she'd ever known, Geki was decieved by the evil Mekkimaru sword. And in any case, Geki was only doing his duty; a nuke-nin like herself was marked for death, after all.   
  
[With my next attack, I will slay him,] Taki thought matter-of-factly, as if merely observing the scenario instead of being within it. She gripped Mekkimaru's hilt at her waist once again, ready to draw again. She suddenly realized she hadn't remembered sheathing the blade. In fact, it seemed she'd been standing here waiting for Geki to come back into range for nearly a minute. With sheer will, she released her grip on Mekkimaru, and the murderous intent abated. Time passed normally: Geki stood where he was and was attempting to stanch the freely bleeding wound with his good forearm.  
  
"You witch," he repeated. "You will not leave this temple alive." With that, he resumed the attack, using his blades in tandem to keep Taki's on the defensive and prevent her from attacking with Mekkimaru.   
  
Not that Taki wanted to use the cursed blade. She could feel it tempting her with easy, bloody victory, but she knew the cost for such power would be high. She did not wish to become another Cervantes.  
  
[But should that happen, my clan must remain at full strength to stop me,] she thought as she parried a killing thrust from Geki's sword arm. [And that includes Geki. I cannot slay him!]  
  
Yet neither could she lose the blade to him here, deluded as he and Master Toki were to the deadly danger that Mekkimaru represented. Taki was the most skilled of the clan next to Master Toki himself, but Geki was as formidable as either in his way. And right now, even wounded and half-blinded by blood in his eyes, he was Taki's superior in combat.   
  
Again, cool wind at Taki's back warned her that Geki had driven her close to the platform's edge. The six-meter drop alone could kill her if she stumbled off poorly, but even jumping down would leave her completely open for a mortal attack. Geki pressed his attack upon the lithe ninja suddenly forced to hold her ground.   
  
Taki had no choice. Again her left hand found and gripped Mekkimaru and again she felt the blade's malevolence flood her mind with murderous emerald fire. Through the flames she saw Geki's death thrust clearly, as if in slow motion: his left hand outstretched in a backhand horizontal slash that would cut her torso or bind up her defenses. His right sword would stab directly for her heart while the left sword thus engaged her Rekkimaru. It was a brilliant attack, perfect for a such a moment as this, when your opponent had no room to sidestep the death thrust. Taki's only chance was to try her trademark flip over Geki's head.  
  
Even as she leapt, she realized with muted horror that this was the real trap. Her Mekkimaru-enhanced perception saw him check his thrust and begin to pivot. In foreknowledge, she saw that she would land behind him just in time to be cut cleanly in half through the midsection by one or both of Geki's blades as he completed his turning slash.   
  
*If* she completed her flip. Gritting her teeth in fierce determination, she sheathed Rekkimaru and focused her energies upon the power of Mekkimaru. The green fire within her ravaged like Gel-O-Fury's winds had less than a quarter of an hour earlier. This gave her a metaphysical frame of reference through which to control the inferno and focus it downward, to use it to bind her to the earth and halt her upward and forward progress--  
  
And still seeing the world through the curiously slowed-down perception granted by Mekkimaru's possession of her senses, she could indeed feel her flip slowing, her weight increasing and suddenly her whole body arcing down almost directly above and in front of Geki. Just as suddenly, she felt she could turn this desperate reversal into an offensive, and did, kicking Geki on the top of his head once, then twice, doubling him over from this most unexpected of attacks.  
  
Despite the heaviness she had felt during her descent, Taki felt herself land as lightly as a cat. Her left arm burned with sandpaper fire and before she knew it, Mekkimaru had drawn and was arcing toward Geki's torso in a deadly slash that would kill him instantly if he was lucky.  
  
NO! Taki thought, but all her considerable willpower could not even slow the evil blade's slice. In desperation through the green fire that now nearly completely consumed her mind and spirit, Taki focused upon her wrist alone--  
  
An explosion of blood and flame. Geki sprawling backward. A ninjatou spinning into the darkness.   
  
----- Next: RONIN 


	4. Ronin

BROKEN, part four: Ronin  
  
-------------  
  
Had Geki tried to draw Mekkimaru again? No, that was somewhen else. With a guttural growl, though the inferno raged in her mind and vision, Taki forced Mekkimaru into its binding sheath far away. Immediately, the flames subsided and she saw Geki fall backward to the ground, holding his re-injured stump where the sword-arm had been just a moment earlier. Taki saw the now ruined sword clattering some meters away. The weapon he'd had in his good hand was nowhere to be seen.  
  
Taki let go of the sheathed Mekkimaru, breathing heavily at the nearness of the duel's end. With all her willpower, she'd been able to bend her wrist so that instead of slicing Geki's body wide open, Mekkimaru had instead only caught and destroyed the housing that secured his prosthetic sword-arm just below his elbow.   
  
Now she saw Geki sitting and staring mutely at his ruined arm, which was not as badly wounded as she had initially feared. Geki looked up at Taki with sudden fear as she approached to make a closer inspection. But the fear quickly gave way to a calm defiance.  
  
"Now what, witch-woman?" he said. "Taking my arm once wasn't enough for you?"  
  
"Do you not, even now, sense the evil power of this blade?" Taki said, her breath still rasping. "It took all my power to not kill you."  
  
"Why bother to spare me?"  
  
Taki paused before answering, reaching out with her senses. There was no threat she could perceive. She smiled slightly, bittersweetly. "You are not nuke-nin, Geki-kun. I would not want to have my friend's blood on my head."   
  
Geki's face softened, as if considering her words, then hardened in sudden alarm. "I cannot sense the others," he said. "Why...?"  
  
She turned to walk away.   
  
"Wait!" Geki said as she strode for the temple's exit. "What do you intend to do with the blade?"  
  
Taki did not answer.   
  
Outside the temple, Taki was stunned to see half a dozen Fu-Ma ninja lying dead or unconscious. Geki's squad, she supposed. She sensed that their assailant was still nearby. She looked to the west. Yes, there was a fresh trail. She began to hurry in pursuit, then slowed almost immediately when she saw that her quarry was barely 70 meters ahead. The man had stopped in his tracks and seemed to be waiting.  
  
Could he be a survivor? she thought. Or is this another trap? She recalled the sheer exhaustion of her just-won duel and doubted if she could handle a third one so soon. Nevertheless, she continued on.   
  
As she drew nearer the man resembled some common ronin rather than any ninja. Then he turned to face her completely, and she stopped, struck by sudden recognition which was mirrored in his face as well. Immediately she recalled a brief duel from a few years back, just prior to her earlier journey west. She had been in search of a lead to the cursed blade she would later know as the Soul Edge, and had infiltrated some thuggish daimyo's castle. There she'd met his hired guard, led by a particularly strong swordsman who'd driven her off with contemptuous ease.  
  
"You're that mercenary," she said in a low voice. Then, more loudly, she added, "Mitsurugi."  
  
The long-haired, unshaven ronin smirked at the sound of his name. "Glad to hear you haven't forgotten it, kuni-chan." Taki saw that despite the fact that he held his sword lazily on his shoulder while absently scratching himself somewhere under his hakama, he nevertheless had left no possible opening. Truly, this one had lost none of his skill in the years.  
  
But Taki, too, had grown in ability since their last meeting. And tired or not, she wanted answers. "Are you responsible for that, back there?"  
  
"What, those ninja?" Mitsurugi sniffed. "I was going my own way when I heard a woman scream from this direction. Guess that was you, because all I found here were those goons. They didn't give me so much as a chance to introduce myself before trying to kill me. Typical ninja. No honor." Mitsurugi peered intently at Taki, who did not react to the slur.   
  
"If they'd known who I was," he continued, "it might've gone easier for them. At least they'd have known when to quit." He allowed himself a faint grin before continuing. "Friends of yours?"  
  
"Fellow clan members, yes," Taki said. "They were hunting me. I have been declared traitor."  
  
"Nuke-nin," Mitsurugi said. Noting her surprise, he added, "Yes, I know a little something of the ninja society. It seems I may have helped you out of a real jam." Relaxing a bit, he sheathed his sword.  
  
"Yes. You have my gratitude." Taki said. "What brings you to this province, Mitsurugi? I sense you are not simply out for a stroll."  
  
"Not exactly." He turned and began to continue walking on. "I travel to the barbarian West."  
  
A chill of foreknowledge ran through Taki's being.  
  
"You seek the evil sword of the West," Taki said. Mitsurugi stopped but did not turn. "You must not pursue this path."  
  
"I must have a weapon mightier than the rifle," he said flatly. "I do not know for certain whether this 'Sou-ru Edo-jo' is that weapon...." Mitsurugi glared back at Taki over his shoulder, a threat plain in the glint of his eye.  
  
"But nothing will stop me from obtaining it!" The mercenary turned and continued to walk away from the exhausted Taki.   
  
Taki was torn. She likely owed Mitsurugi her life. But she knew firsthand how terrible Soul Edge's power was over its victims. If a warrior of Mitsurugi's strength gained the cursed sword, it could mean untold disaster.   
  
She had to stop him, and she might not get another chance!  
  
Taki surreptitiously reached back for her Rekkimaru. She began a silent step approach to Mitsurugi's back. Once she reached within a couple of meters of him, she would unsheathe Rekkimaru and charge full power for a debilitating stab. She intended merely to wound him so he would lack the strength for his quest, but her exhaustion was affecting her usual control. A fatal mistake was possible. And yet, to save Mitsurugi's soul from enslavement, it was worth the risk. Only a few more steps to go.  
  
Now, Taki thought. In an instant, smooth motion, she unsheathed Rekkimaru, held it at gut level, and lunged forward with all her might.  
  
But Mitsurugi, sensing danger, reacted even faster. He pivoted on his left foot to sidestep her attack, blocking her blade with his saya while punching with his right fist directly on her lowermost rib. Taki felt it snap an instant before collapsing to her knees with pain and exhaustion.   
  
"Dirty ninja," Mitsurugi growled, drawing his blade. "Honorless. Pay with your life!" Without hesitation, the mercenary brought his sword down with intent to cut Taki down from collarbone to hip.  
  
But in that brief instant, her hand found Mekkimaru and unsheathed the blade in a flash of eldritch fire. Through the evil mind-flames, she felt the blade catch on something, then shear through with a explosion of sparks and shards.  
  
The mind-flames subsided once again, and she felt her hand again on the re-sheathed Mekkimaru. Mitsurugi was staggering back, staring in amazement at his sword; it had been broken less than a handspan from the hilt.   
  
"Korefugi," he breathed, invoking the sword's name. He looked back at Taki with alarm and a hint of fear, focusing on her hand upon Mekkimaru's hilt. Taki did not press the attack; her broken rib pained her left side greatly, especially after her Mekkimaru-driven counterattack. Breathing was difficult.  
  
Seeing that Taki was in poor fighting condition but wary of her mysterious blade, Mitsurugi relaxed and did not continue the fight. "I see that you have acquired a mighty sword of your own," he said. "Afraid that a simple ronin is more than a match for you in a fair fight?" Mitsurugi began to stride past her, back toward the temple. Taki was sure that had she not been armed, he would have kicked her savagely.  
  
"You don't want this kind of power," Taki gasped through the stabbing pain of her rib.  
  
"I'll be the judge of that, ninja. In any case, you've stopped me for now. I can't very well go West with a broken katana wearing a lousy ninjatou. Guess I'll have to visit that smith again after all..."  
  
"You samurai," Taki called back as Mitsurugi strode into the gathering dusk. "So arrogant. You lust for power without considering the cost!"  
  
"I see that you find the power worth the cost," Mitsurugi said before disappearing completely from sight.  
  
Taki knelt there, holding her wounded side for a long while. This night had been costly; she would have to go to ground to recover from her broken rib before leaving Nippon for the West. Assuming she could avoid Fu-Ma forces long enough to effectively heal, the delay would allow Soul Edge to grow that much stronger.   
  
And then there was Mekkimaru, which now lay deceptively quiet in its scabbard. Although she felt that she was gaining incremental control of Mekkimaru with each touch of the blade, she could not be sure that it wasn't Mekkimaru gaining control of her.  
  
[It cannot be helped,] Taki told herself before painfully rising and continuing on her journey West. But deep in her heart, Mitsurugi's final words echoed hauntingly.  
  
[Is this power worth the cost?]  
  
--Fin-- 


End file.
